It was one week later, the ship had entered the baron field on schedule, and the ship’s slip drive was now being drained by the dampening field and they had just completed there second jump, Frank lay on his bunk in the small sleeping quarters, the quarters may have been cramped, but it hadn’t been so bad as the crew had been running a three on two off shift rotation, it was a small square room directly beside the mess hall, there were two bunk’s on either side of the room and on the opposite side were eight large lockers, Frank had finished a his double shift about twenty minutes ago and he was now just relaxing on his bunk, thinking quietly to him self while entering text into his data pad,
‘Personal log,’ the text read, ‘We’re a week into mission, things have been a bit mad, I’ve lost almost all my credits to Susan playing cards, we did however drop out of the slip corridor on schedule. The patrols followed about a day later, Anna did a good job of blocking out slip trail, but they are catching us up, we think we may have lost them on the last jump though! We’ve also been picking up sensor ghosts for the last day or so, it’s all going to hit the fan any day now!’ Frank looked up from his pad and saw the professor standing at the door way, he had an uneasy look on his face, this was one of the rare occasions the Professor had ventured out the cargo bay, “Hey Professor!” Frank said as he looked back at his pad,
“Er…Um…” The Professor stammered as he tried to think of a reason not to go into the cramped living quarters,
“Relax Professor!” He said as he lit the remainder of a cigar he had put out earlier, “I won’t bite!” Frank looked up and smiled at the professor as he took a draw, “Do you want a cigar?” Frank removed a small packet from his top pocket and offered the pack to the professor,
The professor looked quickly from left to right before walking into the room, “No!” He said as he walked past Frank, “Thank you!” He added quickly as he reached the lockers at the far side of the room,
“Relax!” Frank said as he swivelled round on his bunk and dangled his legs of the edge, “It can’t be healthy spending all that time down in the cargo bay on your own!”
The Professor opened the middle locker and opened up a large black carry all, “I’m fine!” He said as he started rummaging around the bag,
Franks eye brows raised slightly, “Oh. I was,” Frank paused, “I was just trying to be friendly!” Frank said shrugging his shoulders while taking another draw of his cigar,
“Thank you.” The Professor said,
Frank wasn’t entirely sure if the Professor had even heard what he had said or if he was just being polite, but Frank was stubborn, “So, What are you a professor in?” Frank said coyly, the Professor kept rummaging away in his bag without acknowledging Frank’s question, “Are you listening to me?” Frank snapped after a brief pause,
The professor paused, “Yes I am!” He replied as he looked over his shoulder at Frank,
Frank grinned at him, “So, why didn’t you answer?” He asked in a forced friendly voice,
“Because!” The Professor said as he turned back to his bag, “I don’t think it’s any of your business!”
Frank’s face changed and a look of annoyance appeared on his face, “Mind if I try to guess then!” He persisted,
“Yes I do!”
“Tough! You’re a Professor of neurological study?”
“No!” The Professor said calmly,
“Engineering?”
“No!” He said a little more angrily,
“Mining?”
“NO!” He yelled as he turned round, “I’m a Professor in Medicine, Cybernetics and Genetics! Happy!”
“Yes!” Frank said smirking, “How long have you known Artok?” He added,
“None of you’re business!” The Professor turned back to his locker,
“Let me guess!” The smirk on Franks face was getting larger, “One month,” He paused, there was no response, “Two Months… Three Months… Four Months….” As Frank was about to speak again the Professor turned around and slammed his locker loudly,
“Two years!” He yelled,
“And how long have you worked for Syn-Tec?”
The Professor growled angrily, “Three years, why?” He snapped,
Franks brow raised again as he took the last draw from his cigar, “Just curious! What you looking for?”
“I’m not looking for anything now!” The professor said as he turned back to his locker,
“What do you mean?” Frank asked curiously as he tried to peer round the short professor,
“I’ve found what I’m looking for!” The professor shut the locker and turned round, the Professor was clutching, what looked like a small electronic probe, “You know Mr Hall!”
Frank chuckled quietly as he sat back in against the wall, “What?”
“You can be very annoying!” The Professor started to walk out the room,
“So I’ve been told!” Frank whispered just loud enough for the Professor to hear as he left the room,
Frank lay back in his bunk and closed his eye’s and fell asleep.

A loud emergency siren shrieked loudly around the ship, Frank sat up quickly, he rubbed his eye’s groggily, as he leapt from his bunk, “What the!” He exclaimed as he staggered out the room while he struggled to put on his flight jacket, Frank jogged onto the bridge, Anna was sitting at the helm, with the rest of the crew at their respective stations, “What’s happening?” Frank asked as he taped Anna on her shoulder,
“The damn Patrol ship’s just came out of the scrap field we avoided two day’s ago!” Anna said as she stood up to let Frank in,
Artok looked over from his tactical station, “I’m detecting severe damage on all three of the ship’s, they look like they’ve taken a hell of a beating in the scrap field!”
“Good!” Anna said, “That should give us a bit of an advantage, bring the tactical systems on-line.”
Artok turned back to his station and pushed a few buttons, “Armed and ready!” He said excitedly,
“How long before they’re in weapons range?” Anna asked as she sat back down on her seat,
“Twenty seconds!” Artok said,
“Here we go again!” Frank said as he studied the sensor information on his screen, “There’s a large scrap and asteroid field, 100,000 kilometres dead ahead, it should give us some cover!”
Anna looked at the panel on her seat, “Are you sure we can navigate it?” She asked cautiously,
“Hopefully!” Frank answered,
Anna chuckled, “Your judgment Frank!”
“Thank you!” Frank replied as he increased the ship’s speed to full,
“They’re entering weapon’s range now!” Artok said as he fired the rear m
ounted plasma cannons, “Direct hit to the lead ship, their shields are down.” Artok paused and fired several times again, “They’re disabled!” He said triumphantly, “Settle down!” Anna said as she looked over at Artok,
The ship rocked violently several times, “Shields at sixty percent!” Artok said as he looked back at his screen, “Returning fire!” Artok fired again as he growled, “They’ve fired again!”
“Evasive manoeuvres!” Anna shouted at Frank,
Frank rotated the ship and pulled it away from the weapons fire, “Easy!” He said as he straightened the ship back up,
“Damn!” Artok yelled, “Hold tight, incoming torpedoes!” The ship was knocked violently as two large yield Plasmatic torpedoes thumped the ship, two computer terminals exploded, sending Wilson flying from his station,
Susan stood up and ran over to Wilson, “He’s badly injured!” She said as she examined him, “I need to get him to sick bay!” Susan helped Wilson to his feet and started to drag him towards the sick bay,
“Artok report!” Anna asked loudly,
“Shields at…” Artok paused as he checked his screen, “Five percent, they’re buckling! Returning fire!”
“Hold on!” Frank said as he pulled the ship into the Asteroid field, “Wow! That was close!” Frank said as he pulled the ship through a pile of ship scrap and rock, “I can’t hold us in here for long!” Frank said as he struggled with the ship,
“Keep us in as long as you can!” Anna said as she pushed a few buttons on her seat, “Malktik!” She asked sarcastically into her intercom,
“Go ahead captain!” Malktik shouted over the sound of a loud explosion, Malktik was a very skilled engineer, he wasn’t much of a people person but that was understandable as he was particularly self conscience of his looks, and although most would probably find his outward appearance revolting, he considered him self quite attractive. He had two large frog like eye’s bulging out the top of his oval, dark yellow head, this allowed him to see in opposite directions at one time, he had two long thick arms and a strange bony growth that vaguely resembled a shell on his back, this contained a dozen or so long tentacle like arms, with two fingers at the end of each one which he could extend and use to operate complex tasks, although for most of the time they were concealed in his shell,
“Can you give us any more power to the shields?”
“Hold on!” the faint sound of Malktik walking over to a consol, “Can you hear me?” He shouted at the top of his voice,
“Yes! Barely!” Anna shouted loudly into the intercom,
A few inaudible noises followed and a series of thumps and bangs, “I’m going to take the main internal power off line and transfer it to the defensive systems! I’ll activate Auxiliary systems for emergency lighting and environmental systems!” Malktik said as the lights turned off briefly before a dull white light partially illuminated the bridge, “We’re taking heavy damage down here try not to batter us much more!”
“We’ll take it under advisement!” Anna said as she turned off her intercom,
Artok sneered happily, “Shields at seventy percent!”
“Frank report!” Anna said as she held on to her seat as the ship jumped rapidly from left to right,
“I’m going to have to bring us out of here!” Frank pushed a few buttons, “Ah hell! Hold on!” He shouted as he grabbed onto the corners of his consol, a loud thump reverberated through the ship as the crew were jolted violently, “Sorry!” Frank said apologetically,
“Great flying!” Artok snapped as he checked his systems for damage,
“How long till we’re out the field?” Anna yelled over to Frank,
“Any second now!” Frank replied as the ship flew clear of the dense collection of rock and ship debris,
“Two ship’s bearing, 324.212.43! Ten seconds till they intercept!” Artok shouted, “Hold on! I’m picking up, some-thing huge!” He said nervously, “On a direct intercept course from starboard!”
Anna looked over at Artok, “What the hell is it?” She enquired angrily,
Artok turned and faced Anna, “Pirates!” Artok turned back to his terminal as the ship was rocked by a series of weapons shots, “Shields are failing again!” Artok returned fire, “Got you!” He shouted, “I’ve damaged the second ship, I’m detecting fluxuations in their power grid!” Artok fired again, “Ha!” He yelled, “That’ll teach you!” The second Patrol ship powered down and started to drift harmlessly, “Ah crap! Hold on!” Artok shouted as he held on to his consol,
Anna looked over at Artok as the ship got violently shaken, sending Anna flying from her chair, several minor console’s exploded and caught fire, Anna dragged her self to her feet, blood trickled from a large cut above her head, “Damn!” She shouted angrily as she lifted a fire extinguisher,
“We’re dead!” Artok yelled, “Our shields have gone!”
“We’re not done yet!” Frank yelled as he took evasive moves to avoid several more shots, a red light flashed on the bottom left corner of Frank’s terminal, “What the…” He said as he pushed the button,
“Engineering to Bridge!” Malktik’s voice yelled from the consol,
“Yeah what’s wrong?” Frank yelled as he continued to dodge weapon’s fire,
“We’re a severe Plasma leak down here! I’m sealing off engineering!”
“Get out then!” Frank yelled,
“No I’ll be Okay, The gas isn’t toxic to my skin, I’ll get the leak patched up, I can only give you about three quarters speed till then!” Malktik said as he sealed the main entrance and the hatch to the cargo bay,
“Keep me informed!” Frank said as he turned off the intercom,
Artok started to laugh happily,
“What the hell’s so funny?” Anna shouted as she put out the last fire,
“The pirates are attacking the patrols!” He said merrily,
“And why is that good?” Frank said quickly,
“Well… Err…” Artok stammered,
“When the pirate’s are finished with the patrols, they’ll be coming straight for us!” Anna added as she sat back down, “Right!” She said commandingly, “Frank put as much distance as you can between us and the pirates.”
“No problem!” Frank said as he brought the speed steadily up,
“Artok! Get the shield’s and weapons back!”
“I’ll do my best!” Artok said as he started to work feverishly away at his consol,
Anna pushed a button on her chair, “Bridge to sick bay!” Anna said
The intercom cracked and spat, “Go ahead!” Susan said,
“How’s Wilson?” Anna asked,
“He’ll be fine, I’ve patched up his burns and given him a sedative.”
“Okay get out here and take navigation!” “Okay!” Susan said before turning the intercom off, she quickly ran beck onto the bridge and made her way over to the navigation consol, “You’re hurt!” She added as she looked over at Anna,
“I’m fine! Get me a course that the Pirates won’t be able to follow, and I need it now!” Anna said nodding at the navigation terminal,
“The patrol ship’s been destroyed!” Artok said, “There coming after us!”
“Intercept time?” Anna said as she sighed in frustration,
“About a minute!” Artok replied.

Malktik stood at a large consol in front of the main engine drive, engineering took up a significant amount of the ship’s space, it was set over two floors and spanning almost a third of the length of the ship, the main engineering deck, that was located on deck two, contained the main engineering terminals, lined up in a set order, that Malktik himself had decided on for this ship to make it easy for him to operate all the terminals at once, in the middle of the room stood a tall square structure that extended all the way to the top of the ship, this was the main antimatter reaction chamber, this chamber filtered the antimatter energy and allowed the matter and antimatter reaction that was used as fuel for the engines, the top floor, which was mezzanine, was left fairly bare, only a couple of systems that couldn’t be moved remained up there, Malktik would of usually sent his apprentice up there, but for obvious reasons this wasn’t currently possible, a thick brownish green smoked billowed up from large damaged pipes and were slowly filling the room, Malktik stood working feverishly at the main consol, one of eye’s was trained on the consol he was working at, while the other was directed behind him as he watched three of his tentacles fiddling around with the machines behind him, Malktik made several grunts and groans as he worked quickly at his system, despite his skin not being affected by the plasma, he knew his lungs would be if he breathed the toxic fumes, so he was holding his breath, which he was able to do fairly successfully due to an oxygen recycling gland located in his throat, Malktik had once been able to hold his breath for two hours before after he sealed himself in an engineering room and had all the air sucked out to put out a plasma fire, although he knew that was quiet a few years ago, and he didn’t really fancy seeing if could still do it for that long now.

Down in the cargo bay the Professor was working desperately with the main storage containers when one of the plasma conduits exploded, the explosion was of such magnitude it sent him flying across the room where he crashed in to the aft bulk head, “Arg!” He groaned as the lights blew out. The professor sat holding his back in agony in the pitch black, the faint sound of Malktik working above was the only sound that was audible to the Professor, his breathing got louder and more frequent as he slowly regained his composure, he glanced around the dark room desperately trying to find a faint light source to grab onto, the Professor paused suddenly, as he heard a faint scurrying from the other side of the room, “Oh God!” He stuttered as he searched his pockets for a small flash light he kept with him, “Where is it!” He nervously stammered as he emptied his pockets, feeling each item carefully as he removed it from his pocket, after a few nervous moments the professor finally found his torch, which he turned on quickly, his breathing was very heavy now, he was almost at the point of hyperventilating, as he pointed the weak thin beam of light around the room cautiously, a louder scurrying noise echoed from in front of him, he swung the light round and caught a shadow of something moving, the professor tried to scream, but his mouth was so dry now he couldn’t even whimper, another sound, this time closer to him, he swung the light around, out the dark pounced a small domestic cat, which landed in front of the Professor and purred loudly at him, “What the…” He croaked as he breathed a sigh of relief, “Who the hell are you?” He asked as he coughed to try to moisten up his mouth, as he reached over towards the cat it gave out a blood curdling hiss as it’s back arched up and it’s heckles raised, “What?” The Professor said angrily as he turned away from the cat, as he did two menacing red eye’s glowed in front of him and something pounced out the dark.

Malktik pushed the intercom button, “The leaks fixed, you should have full sub light speed now, I’ll get working on main power!” He said smugly as the gas quickly got sucked out the room by vents on the wall,
“Good, see what you can do!” Anna replied,
Malktik turned back to his consol and was about to start work when he heard the Professor’s screams, Malktik walked over to the small hatch at the far end of the engineering bay, it was the only way down to the main cargo hold, and Malktik had sealed it during the plasma leak, it was only a basic manual turn lock, unlike the computer coded magnetic lock between engineering and the main ship, Malktik turned the wheel and opened the hatch, a short plume of smoke billowed up from the pitch black cargo bay, Malktik took a steep back to allow the smoke to clear before leaning back over the hatch, “Professor?” He shouted questioningly into the pit, “Are you okay?”
“H...E…L…P…” A faint voice whimpered from the dark before the bay went completely silent,
Malktik leaned over and peered his head into the cargo bay, out the dark leapt two large clawed arms that grabbed Malktik and dragged him screaming in to the cargo bay, his tentacles desperately tried to cling to the support pylons in the room, but quickly went limp and were dragged into the cargo bay too.

“We’re out running them!” frank said gleefully as he looked over at Anna, “Malktik managed to get another twenty percent out the engines!”
“That’s…” Anna began to say as the ship suddenly lost all power, “What the hell?” She yelled angrily,
Artok punched his terminal before ducking down and removing one of the panels from under his consol, “I can get us emergency bridge power, hold on!” He said as he fiddled around in the dark,
Three weak red light came on and the bridge lit up, even more dimly than usual, Artok’s sensor screen came back on, and the comms terminal switched back on,
Anna pushed a couple of buttons on her chair and the armour that was blocking the large windows that were standing between the main view screen at the front of the bridge, slowly opened, “Bridge to engineering!” She said hurriedly as she banged the intercom, “How long till the pirate’s have us?” She asked as she looked over at Artok,
The ship jarred as they started moving backwards, “Now! They’ve got us in a tractor beam!” Artok sat back in his seat as he thumped his knees with his hands,
“What now?” Frank asked as the ship got dragged slowly into the pirate ship’s hanger,
“Is fighting an option?” Artok asked hopefully as he pushed the button to extend the landing feet,
Frank and Anna both stood up at almost the same time and went over to the same window, the ship was placed carefully on a landing platform. It was a massive ship, at least ten times the size of the patrol ships, it was more of a flying planet than a space ship, the hanger was three times the height of the groups ship, and stretched back at least two hundred feet, several small ships were sitting on similar landing pads, but most of them were in a state of disrepair, as the pirates had been striping them down for spare parts for years now. On the ground out side the ship there were several dozen heavily armed troops all in battle gear,
“I think fighting would be stupid!” Frank said as he turned back to Artok,
“So what?” He snapped angrily, “We just surrender?”
Anna laughed, “If we surrender we may be kept alive long enough to escape, if we fight now we’ll die now!” She stated firmly as an alarm sounded loudly on the bridge,
“Intruder alert!” Artok said as he drew his gun,
Anna drew her weapon and threw it on the ground, “Don’t be a fool!” She said as she backed away to the window,
Frank looked at Susan and shrugged as he too removed his guns and threw them on the ground, Susan stood up and followed Franks example, “Frank!” Susan said quietly,
“Yeah?” Frank replied,
“The emergency engineering panel says theirs been a class two malfunction in the primary input output ionic manifold.” Susan paused, “What ever the hell that means!”
Frank sighed, “If we escape we have to find a new ionic manifold.”
Three heavily armed troops stormed on to the bridge and pointed their weapons at the crew,
“We surrender!” Anna said as she raised her arms,
The troops seemed more interested in Artok, who still hadn’t dropped his gun, “Drop it!” The leading trooper said to Artok,
Artok’s eyes closed slightly as he growled and turned a light pink colour, “Okay!” He said eventually as he threw his gun to the floor,
One of the shorter troopers walked over to Susan and looked her up and down from behind his red blast mask, “Hello darling!” He said in a deep sleazy voice, as he reached out his arm and went to touch her,
Frank lurched forward and thumped the trooper in the face, he was about to hit him again when another, considerably larger trooper thumped Frank on the back of the neck with his rifle,
“No!” Susan yelled as the trooper took aim at Frank,
“Stop!” A loud voice shouted from the door way, a tall, well built man dressed in partial blast armour walked in, “She wants this lot alive!”
The large trooper lowered his rifle and stepped back as the smaller trooper picked him self up, and snarled at Susan, “I can do that!” He said snarling as he went to get Susan again,
The tall man got very annoyed and grabbed the short trooper by the head, his hand was so big it fitted over the troopers head, and he dragged him back and threw him against the bridge wall, “And untouched, idiot!” He sneered as he lifted the trooper’s mask and shot him once in the head.
Susan turned away from the corpse as it was dragged of the bridge by a couple of the other troopers, “I’m a doctor!” She said as she turned back to the tall man,
“I think it may be a bit late for him!” he chuckled as he pointed as the blood trail leading off the bridge,
“No, not for him!” She said as she looked awkwardly at the trooper, “I’ve a patient in the sick bay, he’s not badly hurt, but I need to keep an eye on him plus my other crew mates have a few minor injuries I'd like to treet!”
The man smiled, “What do you need?” He asked as he ordered two of his men into the sick bay,
“My bag!” Susan passed her medical supply bag to him, “That’s it!”
“Don't worry about him, He'll be taken to the medical bay!" he said as the troops he'd sent to the medical bay returned with Susans bag, the man had a quick rummage through it for weapons, removing several hypodermic injectors and throwing them on the ground "I'll let you treat your crew mates though" He stated as he threw the bag over to her, "But the boss would like to see you lot first.” He sneered as he used his gun to point at the exit.